Bosnian Croats have been protesting against the sentences passed against five of their countrymen at the international war crimes tribunal last week.

Some two-thousand people temporarily blocked the main road in the central Bosnian town of Vitez.

They said the sentences -- ranging from six to twenty-five years -- were too harsh, and based on insufficient evidence.

The local Croat party, HDZ, has also expressed surprise at what it called the severity of the sentences.

The five men were sentenced for their part in the massacre at least one-hundred Muslim men, women and children in central Bosnia in 1993.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service